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Over the past few years insurance email marketing has become wildly popular. Compared to direct mail, it's inexpensive since no printing or postage is required. It's also highly measurable.

You can see who clicked, what they clicked on and easily assess your response rate and ROI. Yet, despite all these advantages, many insurance email campaigns aren’t as successful as they could be. If you have a nagging feeling that your campaigns could do better, these insurance marketing ideas may help solve the problem:

1. The subject line doesn’t produce opens

Just like direct mail, email has to be opened before it can effectively do its job. The best subject lines are short (50 characters or less) and relevant. They should convey a benefit or evoke curiosity, but they should not read like a sales pitch. Also, for best deliverability, avoid spam words.

2. The headline isn’t compelling

It happens every day. The insurance industry’s leading companies squander the most important sales real estate — the email header. You have three seconds, maybe less. Make sure your header has an interesting image and a headline focused on you that hooks the reader.

3. There’s no offer or call to action

You have to give readers a reason to click. If you add a free offer such as a white paper, case study, report, webinar or sales tool, your click rate will soar — sometimes by 200 percent or more compared to the same email with no offer. Your email has one role: to entice a reader to step into your sales funnel by completing a form. Then it’s up to your sales and marketing people to nurture the lead and close the deal.

4. The email is too long

Short emails always perform better than long. I’ve seen this proven time and again. You get one introductory paragraph, and then you need to get to the offer. Leave the details for the landing page.

5. There aren’t enough places to click through

I like emails that give the reader three to five places to click. The more links and buttons you have, the more click through you’ll get.

6. The button or call to action is below the fold

Don’t make them scroll to click.

7. The email design isn’t mobile friendly

More than half of your audience is viewing your email from a smart phone. Before you send to the masses, see what it looks like on your phone. If you have giant blank white squares where images should be, or you have to scroll around to see the point of the email, go back to the drawing board.

8. Your list is bad

When it comes to email lists, you generally get what you pay for. If someone is offering to sell a list for below market rate, run – it probably won’t perform. Use opted-in lists from reputable sources.

9. You’re hoping for a one-hit wonder

As with all types of marketing, repetition and familiarity build response. If you consistently provide good, helpful information, you’ll build trust and clicks. Once you get a lead in the door, keep nurturing the lead with helpful, personalized follow up emails.

10. Your creative is stale

You can’t rerun the same email four times in a month. Ideally, you should wait six to eight weeks before resending an email to the same audience.

If you want better email marketing results, take a close look at these 10 items. Chances are good that at least one item on this list is undermining your efforts.